some
one's duty to see that he was not put in danger by any possible mishap
elsewhere on the hills. Sullivan, therefore, the second in command,
went out to "examine" and to "reconnoitre." He had been out the
evening before, making the rounds with Putnam; to him Miles had
reported the situation of affairs on the extreme left; and it was by
his general orders that the last detail of guards had been made for
each of the passes. He was accordingly familiar with the plan of the
outer defence, and upon reaching the Flatbush Pass, where, as Miles
states, he took his station at the redoubt or barricade on the road,
he seems to have given certain directions on the strength of the
information he had obtained. If we may credit the writer of one of the
letters published at the time, the general was told that the main
body of the enemy were advancing by the lower road, "whereupon he
ordered another battalion to the assistance of Lord Stirling, keeping
800 men to guard the pass."[146] It is not difficult to accept this as
a correct statement of what actually occurred, because it is what we
should expect would have taken place under the circumstances. That
Sullivan took out any additional troops with him when he went to the
pass does not appear, but doubtless some were sent there. But as to
this Flatbush Pass, the most that can be said with any degree of
certainty is, that at about nine o'clock in the morning the Hessians
still remained comparatively quiet at the foot of the hills below;
that our guards and pickets stood at their different posts, not in
regular line, but detached on either side of the road, the commander
of each party governing himself as necessity required; that they were
expected to hold that point stubbornly, if for no other purpose now
than to secure Stirling's line of retreat; and that if attacked they
were to be reinforced. At the hour Sullivan reached the pass the
situation at all points appeared to be satisfactory.

[Footnote 145: Most of our writers are led into the error of supposing
that Sullivan was already at the Flatbush Pass, and that when he went
to reconnoitre he started from this point. The general says: "I went
to the Hill near Flatbush to reconnoitre the enemy, and with a picket
of four hundred men was surrounded by the enemy," etc. He went to the
hill--where from? The main camp, necessarily. We already had our
pickets well out in front, and had Sullivan gone beyond these he would
have come upon t